Just a Scratch
by Melody Syper Carston
Summary: "Pinkie promise," he stated, locking their pinkie's together and nodding his head before releasing the child. "Now go and find your bother. I'm sure he's wondering where you are." ACE family fic. Slight Fluff


**Just a scratch!  
****By: Melody Syper Carston**

Oneshot: Please, Artie?

"Arthur! Arthur!" a small, boyish voice called from the hall way of said Arthur Kirkland's home. "Dad! Where are you?" The voice grew nearer and nearer to the Brit's office—Arthur's current location—the quick pounding of feet on a hardwood surface growing louder.

Arthur gave himself all of five seconds to prepare himself for impact as a small blonde child flew into his office, cheerful energy bouncing off of the child in waves of varying intensity. The boy had never been the best at stopping himself once he had started sprinting and soon collided with the Briton's chest with a muffled '_thump_'. The older blonde quickly steadied himself by shifting one foot backwards and wrapping his arms around the lad's shoulders.

"Alfred," Arthur greeted, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

Once recovering from running such a long distance and then getting the breath knocked out of him from his collision, Alfred stepped back and grinned. "Dad~! Come play with Mattie and me outside! Please? It'll be fun!"

Arthur's smile faltered slightly before sliding off of his face completely, "I'm sorry, Alfie, but I've got work to do," he began, "you understand, right? With all of the paperwork piling up, I barely have any free time to myself… I'm a big Nation, and I have the responsibility of making sure my country and my little colonies"—here he poked the boy in the nose, teasingly—"are stable and in check. Maybe some other time, lad?"

Alfred visibly wilted at this, "Okay…" Seconds later his face was as brightly lit as ever, though. "Hey, if you do get the chance, promise you'll come out and play with Mattie and me?"

"'Mattie and _I,_' Alfred. I don't know if I'm going to have any time left. I'm really busy, lad. I just told you that. It can't—"

"But you never spend any time with us anymore~! You're always in your office or sleeping!" Alfred cried, stomping his foot in frustration. His sapphire eyes glossed over and his bottom lip jutted out—wobbling slightly for effect—and he folded his hands together, pleading in a quiet voice, "Please, Artie?" He then reached up to tug at the Brit's sleeve, begging over again, his _pitiful_-_acknowledge_-_me_ stare growing more and more intense each time he asked.

Arthur, unable to resist that puppy-dog stare without feeling an immense amount of guilt, relented hesitantly, bringing a hand up to ruffle the blonde's hair. "Alright, alright. I'll see if I can finish up a bit faster so that I can spend some time with you two before bedtime. Is that alright?"

"Promise!"

A pinkie was held up for him, naïve eyes widening with comical seriousness as Alfred demanded this.

An eye roll from Arthur. "Pinkie promise," he stated, locking their pinkie's together and nodding his head before releasing the child. "Now go and find your bother. I'm sure he's wondering where you are." Arthur gently pushed the boy out of his office and watched as the child gave a loud cheer and rocketed down the hall with a loud call of, "_Mattie, where are you?_"

**X~*~X**

'_Finally_,' Arthur thought as he signed the last document and stamped it for authenticity. He leaned back in his seat, rubbing a hand across his face as if to wipe away the exhaustion still lingering after hours and hours of reading nothing but government documents and citizen complaints. He checked the time and smiled, "There's still plenty of time before nightfall."

He stood, stretching out the kinks in taut muscles and letting out a small groan as he felt his spine click one-two-three-four times. And with that, Arthur set out to search for the twins.

He made it all the way to the front door before his search was ended—a loud slam and a sniffle alerting him at once. Arthur looked down in shock to see that Alfred was now trying to attempt to stand and steady himself and sit down on the concrete ground below him at the same time, front door standing wide open thanks to Alfred's not so subtle entry.

"A-Artie~!' Alfred whimpered, eyes filling with tears and face contorting in pain.

"A-Alfred… What's wrong? What happened? Where's Matthew?" He bent down to study the boy noticing that he was clutching at one of his knees and that there was a huge neon green grass stain on the front of the boy's once pristine white shirt. Arthur carefully reached over and clasped the small fingers that were wrapped around the boy's knee.

This earned a small cry from the blonde who swallowed hard and sniffled again. "We were playing a game of tag. And Mattie was It so I was running away from him and I wasn't looking where I was going and I tripped and hit my knee… and kind of ruined my shirt… sorry. Mattie went to get the first aid kit!" he explained, tightening the grip he had on his knee.

Arthur sighed and scooped the boy up in his arms, carrying him into the kitchen and setting the lad down on the counter. He turned and grabbed a rag out of a drawer before wetting it in the sink and turning back to Alfred—who had yet to relinquish his hold on his skinned knee. "I need to see the scrape and clean it so it doesn't get infected, lad. Move your hands away."

Alfred slowly moved his hands away, clenching them into fists on the counter. "But it _hurrrts_~!"

"Well, it's only going to hurt worse if you let it get infected. Now let me clean it." Arthur shook his head and gently pressed the wet rag to the cut. It wasn't deep, in fact, Alfred had barely scratched the surface, but just because it wasn't a life or death situation when dealing with the small scraped up knee, Arthur was not about to run the risk of letting the wound become infected. Once he had removed most of the dirt, grass, and gravel, Arthur turned to his left to see Matthieu holding out the first aid kit expectantly.

"Thank you, Matt," Arthur murmured, taking the kit and setting it down beside Alfred on the counter. He quickly grabbed the disinfectant and turned to Alfred, "This might sting a bit."

Alfred barely had time to suck in a breath of air before Arthur was spraying the freshly cleaned wound. The boy let out a small whine at the burning sensation crawling up his knee. "_Owowowowowowow_~!"

It was over soon enough and Arthur was then covering the scrape with bandages. "That wasn't so bad was it?" Arthur finally asked, leaning down and pressing a brief kiss to the wounded knee out of impulse. With a soft smile, he pulled the boy off of the counter and carried him into the living room; Matthieu following quietly behind the duo—one hand curled into the hem of Arthur's shirt, the other curled around one arm of his stuffed polar bear. "How about we relax indoors instead?"

**X~*~X**

**A/N: So… I got this idea… this morning while putting my shoes on to take my dog—who I've decided to rename Lovi because of her… **_**less that pleasant**_** attitude towards anyone but me—on a walk. I glanced down at my Vans as I was slipping them on and noticed neon green grass stains on the toe of them and this came to mind. **

**YEAH MY WEIRD INSPIRATION MOMENTS ARE BACK! FROM STAR STICKERS TO GRASS STAINS TO HOLDING HANDS I'M LOVIN' ALL THESE IDEAS~! PLUS! GUESS WHAT~! THIS IS STORY NUMBER 30! MY GOAL BEFORE I HIT MY TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY ON FANFICTION~! HECK YEA! WITH A MONTH AND THREE DAYS TO SPARE! And I have a few more oneshots that are crawling around in my head (My Snow White Queen included) so… expect a bunch of those. And some updates to DOL.**

**Anyway, review and stuff. I'd like that.**

"**I don't see why people add disclaimers to their stories. I mean obviously they don't own it, or they would be multimillionaires that actually did something with their lives instead of writing things for fanfiction. If they actually owned all of this shit, then it would have actually happened, and they wouldn't even bother to think about this dumbass website." -One of my friends on disclaimers**

**~Melody Syper Carston**


End file.
